Thought of signing meself onto a three-year-voyage aboard the Pequod to go a-whalin', me hearties; you know-- me and Queequeg and Starbuck enjoying a Starbuck's capuccino on the forward deck with the tang of salty sea-air in our nostrils and the strains of Tom Waits' 'Shiver Me Timbers' a-blastin from the boombox lashed to the mast... just below the gold dubloon a-nailed thar... but, truth is: been thar, matey; done that; and got the tee-shirt, you could say...

Figured I needed to break the spell, needed a change of scene... a change of routine... a change of genre... opted instead to climb aboard this h'yere stage coach a-headin' west, young man, instead. It's a-goin' to Deadwood, they tell me, an' tha's all ah needs to hear.

"Deadwood?" I says... "Well, count me in, boys," I says...

"But she'll be some dangerous," they says. "We takin' us a li'l detour, ya see... through a coupla places... one's called The Badlands (and fer good reason, too!). Then... there's them rattler-infested Black Hills. If'n we survive them, well... prob'ly we'll just mosey on down to a paticklar river called... The Li'l Big Horn. They's some Injuns down that-a-way that I reckon you might allow ain't quite what you'd call 'happy campers,' if you catch my meanin'... if you get my drift..."

"Boys?" I says. "I seen The White Whale up close an' pers'nal more than once, an' Ah'm a-still here to tell of it. Jus' han' me that double-barrel shotgun an' gimme a han' up to sit next to that 'air mule skinner, wouldja...? Like Leonard Cohen once tol' me: 'I'm yore man.' From this point on, you kin jes' call me Ishmael the Kid. Le's giddyup now!"

An here I am now, a-playin' "Red River Valley" on my ol' harmonica under the stars next to the buffalo-chip campfire...a way out here already in the Wilds of Wisconsin... a journey of a thousand miles begun with a single step...